ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
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Division Spotlight
Isotopes & Radiation
Members are devoted to applying nuclear science and engineering technologies involving isotopes, radiation applications, and associated equipment in scientific research, development, and industrial processes. Their interests lie primarily in education, industrial uses, biology, medicine, and health physics. Division committees include Analytical Applications of Isotopes and Radiation, Biology and Medicine, Radiation Applications, Radiation Sources and Detection, and Thermal Power Sources.
Meeting Spotlight
International Conference on Mathematics and Computational Methods Applied to Nuclear Science and Engineering (M&C 2025)
April 27–30, 2025
Denver, CO|The Westin Denver Downtown
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
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Latest News
Argonne’s METL gears up to test more sodium fast reactor components
Argonne National Laboratory has successfully swapped out an aging cold trap in the sodium test loop called METL (Mechanisms Engineering Test Loop), the Department of Energy announced April 23. The upgrade is the first of its kind in the United States in more than 30 years, according to the DOE, and will help test components and operations for the sodium-cooled fast reactors being developed now.
Jun-Yun Yang, Xiao Gang, Yang-Jun Ying
Nuclear Science and Engineering | Volume 182 | Number 4 | April 2016 | Pages 538-554
Technical Paper | doi.org/10.13182/NSE15-44
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
A code called CriSAA used for criticality excursion evaluation and analysis is developed by coupling a two-dimensional thermal-hydraulic code and a zero-dimensional neutron kinetics code. The generalized semi-Markov process simulation method is improved in the neutron kinetics code, which makes it suitable for the transient cases of both stochastic and intense neutron fields. Pulse withdrawal experiments and ramp feed experiments performed on the Transient Experiment Critical Facility (TRACY) are simulated with CriSAA. The transient characteristics of isolated and open criticality excursions on TRACY are studied. The simulation fits well with the experiments. Stochastic phenomena of the criticality excursions under a weak source case are studied. The statistics characteristics, including time and energy to first peak, power of first peak, and total energy, are shown. This work provides an advanced approach for criticality excursion evaluation and analysis.